Remember when vertical jumpers – those endless tilt-controlled games like Papi Jump and Doodle Jump - were all the rage on iOS? Well, Silver Tree Media has a new title, Cordy Sky, that takes the familiar jump-ever-higher formula and mixes it with great control schemes, rich art, and new challenges. Best of all, it’s free.

Cordy Sky, the sequel to hit Cordy, has players trying to jump on platforms and bumpers and other things that bounce in an effort to reach a height of 5000 meters. Each 1000-meter segment is set in its own rich world. Players collect gears – the in-game currency – and power ups like extra lives or super bouncy bubbles as they spring ever upward.

The gears are used buy upgrades for our robotic pal as well as for clothing and different colored little cyber hoppers. The gears aren’t hard to accrue by simply playing for a while, but bundles are available for in-app purchase of course. There is no pressure to buy, however, and I found most of the upgrades that I needed were affordable while those whose costs might tempt me to purchase actually remove a lot of the game’s challenge.

Like all endless jumpers a fall is fatal and means restarting from the bottom. Cordy Sky is kind in that it allows new elements introduced in later stages to stay part of the gameplay from the ground up, so things feel less repetitious than other games in this genre.

The controls are a very clever. There are three schemes. Players can go for traditional tilt controls which are best on iPod touch and iPhone, and there are both directional arrows and a slider, the latter of which is ideal for the larger iPad. All the systems work well.

The level designs are original, and the cut scenes are well-animated and highly polished. In fact the whole package shows the developers put a lot of time and thought into reinventing this classic iOS gaming premise.

Cordy Sky’s difficulty level is on the low side. Players can bound beyond the 5000 meter cap, but the story, such as it is, ends there. With double jumps, and a fair amount of room to fall before crash landing a lot of my progress felt like an even mix of luck and skill.

The game isn’t going to eat up hours, but there is some added replay value in the Game Center achievements. For a casual pick-up-and-play title Cordy Sky is refined and lots of good free fun.

Review disclosure: note that the product reviewed on this page may have been provided to us by the developer for the purposes of this review. Note that if the developer provides the product or not, this does not impact the review or score.